Everyone has a different definition for what collecting means to them.  Collecting is something I do in my free time and is my 'hobby'.  I do not look at collecting as acquiring stuff for future $$$, but as preservation for a game that was a huge part of my childhood.  In 20 or so years, I will pass everything along to the next generation of like minded people who will hopefully take care of it as well (or better) than I have.  If you think these books are hard to find in great condition now, in 20 years, it will be impossible. I really hope not however.

-SKA

aia wrote in CGC Grading Etc...:Just another (likely silly) question about slabbed magazines: i own some early Dragon with mailing cover... if i decide to slab them, is this mailing cover preserved or not?

I'll be honest with you here, I'm a proponent of slabbing but I wouldn't get those copies slabbed. #1 if they pulled off the mailing cover to grade/slab the issue that ruins the cachet of having the mailing cover still attached. #2 I'm not sure if they would "fold back" the mailing cover so the regular cover is displayed, or if they would just display it with the mailing cover intact. Either way I think the presentation would suffer.

Mike B.

Tszii wrote in CGC Grading Etc...:I thought I would plagiarize from a post I found on a forum. It details a couple reasons I was glad to hear CGC is grading DnD items - I am even happier they have competition with CBCS. (Who also grade supplements)

I thought this was interesting because it occurred to me, overall, we arent near this picky as a community. I wasnt too picky until a couple of years ago. The print runs of comics, and sheer number of different comics, makes it impossible to distinguish one item or collection from the next without without grades. It is easier with, relatively, so few modules. I honestly cant imagine DnD collectors talking in these terms over condition. It seems really picky. Whatever the word choice was for the day, saying something isnt a 9.4, but a 8.0 to 9.0 at best? Has that ever even happened with a module ever?


Shortened plagiarized post:

In case anyone reading this wonders why CGC and other grading companies are not only important, but vitally necessary to the comics collecting hobby, here's a great example I thought I'd share with you all:

I got this answer from an eBay seller when I wrote to them and said the "NM" Atom #17 wasn't quite as nice as he'd claimed.

Ha! Ya gotta love it! Comic Geekdom at it's finest! Kudos. I see your point and I concur. As a professional musician who has toured the planet, I find it unsettling that terminal newsprint is given greater scrutiny than the flaws of the world. "

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a wackjob who thinks comics, in and of themselves, are all that high on the important in life scale. They're not.

After all...this seller claimed the book was in "SPECTACULAR NEAR MINT CONDITION FROM MY PERSONAL COLLECTION."

And the book is certainly decent. It's probably an 8.0 to 9.0 as is. But "SPECTACULAR NEAR MINT"...? Not quite. And if I'm paying over 400 times cover price...I should think that earns me the right to get what is offered, no...?

For those of you who weren't buying in the bad old days, things were so, so much worse before CGC. For all the complaining about CGC...and they need to have their feet held to the fire, too, so they stay honest...things are ten thousand times better than they were before. There are people...to this day, in 2018...that STILL haven't recovered the value of the "high grade" AF #15s they bought as unrestored in the mid to late 90's, that have color touch, or slight trimming, or other forms of "restoration." And that's despite the massive runup in 2008.

Back then...your choice really was to put up or shut up. Retailers controlled the market, and if you wanted your fix, you had to suck it up. For most of the time before CGC, there was no internet, so your local store...or expensive conventions...were your only choice. And not to say there wasn't choice...there was, and prices were a LOT cheaper than they are today. But the choices today are so far above and beyond what they were back then, it's really a whole different world. Now, you can.... know that, 999 times out of 1,000, the book in the slab is not going to be a 7.5 masquerading as a 9.6.




My favorite two responses to the post:

To me they didn't revolutionize anything, just ruined comics more by making people even more obsessed with the stupid made up grade number and locking comics up in slabs, defeating the entire purpose of a comic, which is to be read and enjoyed. Who cares what "grade" it's in.
-----
Nobody cares. And I don't say this in a patronizing manner. I say this with a great deal of dejection and resignation.

The community culture we used to enjoy, even if that was a period of more conflict and disagreement, was the best this hobby ever had.

We had a self-regulating function which dealt with everything from steering people in the right direction on how to disclose, right through to lighting the fire under the feet of people who conducted themselves in a rogue manner.

The ones who were really angry and raged (and still do) about slabbing are usually vendors, merchants and resellers. The reason is they can't downgrade a collection on one end to the seller (when they buy the collection) then upgrade the collection on the other end (when they are telling potential buyers everything is "Near Mint" and asking for top dollar). They also cannot rip of little old ladies and widows (as I saw many times during my comic con days in the 90s) by giving them $10 for a XMen 94 then marking it to $2000 when she left dejected. If that XMen 94 was in a slab with a grade of 8.0 this kind of garbage would have never happened. Now if the comics are slabbed they are forced to pay what comics are worth and it drives them crazy. Well, fuck them.

The "This item was meant to be read/used" argument is frankly idiotic and used by ignoramuses. Under that type of thinking a Gutenberg Bible is "meant to be read" and should be in the general collection of any library that has it. Anything out there is available online so it's a specious stupid argument and I have no issue telling you that you are really stupid if this is your reasoning. Fuck, come to NTX I'll tell you how stupid you are to your face and give you a free laugh in your face just to make it real. I'll even point at you when I'm laughing and mocking you.

I've been on Ebay since 1998 and it's a well known fact EVERY SINGLE COMIC listed before slabbing was noted to be "Near Mint, brand new" regardless of creases, spine stress, even tears and stains. The restoration problem was also widespread. I personally remember balking at buying a Brave and Bold #28 (first JLA) at a show when under examination I notice the cover had been "enhanced" with paint marks to cover scratches and fading. The restoration was never revealed and I passed on it, someone else bought it before the end of the show and I'm just glad it wasn't me. Trimming was probably even more widespread than color touch ups, and harder IMO to detect. Im not sure how widespread this is or will ever be with D&D modules but I do know that I see a lot of "NM" modules that appear even to my eye to be no better than VF or worse. So I will agree that we are going to be a lot less accepting of modules graded exceptionally high than we have been in the past. I've also realized with having items professionally graded a lot of my collection is in only average condition, not an issue for me since I'm not looking to sell most of it, but a very sobering thought in that at one time I did think the condition was above average if not excellent. I'm a much better grader now and much less accepting of many of the flaws I overlooked before.


Mike B.

Badmike wrote in CGC Grading Etc...:

I've also realized with having items professionally graded a lot of my collection is in only average condition, not an issue for me since I'm not looking to sell most of it, but a very sobering thought in that at one time I did think the condition was above average if not excellent.p[/quote]

Same here, but Ive also started to feel better about 6.0-8.0s. Many of the first print A1, Q1, S3, and earlier mono modules, are 4.0-5.0 conditions. I have seen a couple of nice G1 first prints over the last several months, but no others in a couple of years. There just cant be many G1 first prints in 9.0+ condition out there right?

idk how to quote properly obviously.

Sorry if this is a lazy question but how is provenance accompanying a special or unique item handled? For example a module from a TSR employee’s collection auctioned by the Collectors Trove. I’d assume that signed provenance would be in view in the slab’s backside and annotated somewhere accordingly?

FoulFoot wrote in CGC Grading Etc...:Pretty sure the early Dragons' mailing covers were actually "mailing wraps", slipcovers that could be removed without damaging the magazine or the slipcover.  It's been a while since I've had my collection so I may be mis-remembering here.

Foul

Badmike is referring to Dragon Magazines #'s 11-26 that had an additional cover attached to them (and that is how they were mailed out, i.e. mailing labels were pasted on to the back of the additionally added cover). The covers came in about 8 different colors (one cover is red, another light blue, another tan etc.).

I'm glad CGC got into it for the the slab-to-display crowd. WATA is flat out owned by hucksters.

My thoughts on pricing continue to devolve with inflation and my viewing of comic book content on youtube. I dont know why anything costs what it does now.

Edit: I had to look it up. A 9.4 sold for $152. My sealed copy is on a shelf leaning against a dual master tin. Its the only sealed game I own - because it says DnD on the front.

D&D materials, being tabletop role-playing game products, would likely be categorized under the "Games/Trading Cards" section by CGC.

I haven't seen any official on this from CGC.  Maybe someone else has.

Tszii wrote in CGC Grading Etc...:I thought I would plagiarize from a post I found on a forum. It details a couple reasons I was glad to hear CGC is grading DnD items - I am even happier they have competition with CBCS. (Who also grade supplements)

I thought this was interesting because it occurred to me, overall, we arent near this picky as a community. I wasnt too picky until a couple of years ago. The print runs of comics, and sheer number of different comics, makes it impossible to distinguish one item or collection from the next without without grades. It is easier with, relatively, so few modules. I honestly cant imagine DnD collectors talking in these terms over condition. It seems really picky. Whatever the word choice was for the day, saying something isnt a 9.4, but a 8.0 to 9.0 at best? Has that ever even happened with a module ever?

There of course have been collectors who have been picky about the condition of their items for a long time. To be blunt (with two exceptions) those are the people with the biggest and best collections of these items because we have been worried about condition (usually long before we had the means to "overpay" for items). I was chided about spending $46 to buy the first Orange B3 ever sold (at GenCon 1982). I was chided here on the Acaeum for buying Brian Blume's true 1st print copy of the Holmes box set for $500 in 2007 (iirc). One of my critiques of "our community" has been the Noble Knight model of pricing. They would charge $500 for an item in NM condition and $475 for the same item in VG condition and both would sell. That is happening because the buyer at $475 wants it for its content instead of its collectability. Now I'm not saying that what NK is doing with its pricing is illegal or unethical, it merely reflects their understanding that there are uneducated/impatient buyers that are not willing to wait for that VG copy to be $150, if they but waited or cast their net a little wider. That is the pricing model in the comics world and I believe we will get there in time, especially with POD copies being available to be reading/play copies.